A Series of Unfortunate Events 12 - The Penultimate Peril
“And what about the sugar bowl?” Klaus asked. “The crows will drop the sugar bowl if the harpoon hits them.” He frowned at a page of his commonplace book. “If the crows drop a heavy object like that,” he said, “it will fall straight down into the pond.”
“Maybe no,” Sunny said.
“Where else could it land?” Violet said.
“Spynsickle,” Sunny said, which was her way of saying “laundry room.”
“How would it get into the laundry room?” Klaus asked.
“The funnel,” Sunny said. “Frank said. Or Ernest.”
“So they had you place a lock on the laundry room door,” Violet said, “so that nobody could get to the sugar bowl.”
“But did Frank have Sunny activate the lock,” Klaus asked, “or Ernest? If it was Frank, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any villains who want to get their hands on it. But if it was Ernest, then the sugar bowl is locked away from any volunteers who ought to get their hands on it.”
“J. S.,” Sunny said.
“J. S. is the key to the entire mystery,” Violet agreed. “Esmé Squalor thinks J. S. is spoiling the party. Sir thinks J. S. is hosting the party. Hal thinks J. S. might be here to help. Kit thinks J. S. might be an enemy. And we still don't even know if J. S. is a man or a woman!”
“Like blind men,” Sunny said, “with elephant.”
“We have to find J. S.,” Klaus agreed, “but how? Trying to locate one guest in an enormous hotel is like finding one book in a library.”
“A library without a catalog,” Violet said quietly, and the three Baudelaires exchanged sad glances by the light of the frog-shaped lamp. The children had uncovered countless secrets in libraries under the most desperate of circumstances. They had decoded a message in a library while a hurricane raged outside, and had found important information while a sinister person chased them around a library in wicked shoes. They had discovered crucial facts in a library that held only three books, and obtained a vital map in a library that was only a pile of papers hidden underneath a table. The Baudelaires had even found the answers they were looking for in a library that had burned down, leaving only a few scraps of paper and a motto etched on an iron archway. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny stood for a moment at the concierge desk and thought of all the libraries they had seen, and wondered if any of the secrets they had uncovered would help them find what they were looking for in the perplexing library of the Hotel Denouement.
“The world is quiet here,” Sunny said, reciting the motto her siblings had found, and as her words echoed in the lobby, they heard a noise above them, a quiet shuffling from the enormous dome, scarcely audible over the sound of the croaking frogs. The shuffling grew louder, but the Baudelaires could not see anything in the blackness over their heads, which was as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night. Finally, Violet lifted the frog-shaped lamp as far as its cord would allow, and all three children removed their sunglasses. Faintly, they could see a shadowy shape lowering itself from the machinery of the clock using what looked like a thick rope. It was an eerie sight, like a spider lowering itself to the center of a web, but the Baudelaires could not help but admire the skill with which it was done. With only a slight shuffle, the shape drew closer and closer, until at last the children could see it was a man, tall and skinny, with his legs and arms sticking out at odd angles, as if he were made of drinking straws instead of flesh and bone. The man was climbing down a rope he was unraveling at the same time, which is an activity I do not recommend unless you've had the proper training, and unfortunately the best trainer has been forced to go into hiding ever since a certain mountain headquarters was destroyed by arson, and he now earns his living doing spider imitations in a traveling show. Finally, the man was quite close to the ground, and with an elegant flourish he let go of the rope and landed silently on the floor. Then he strode toward the Baudelaires, pausing only to brush a speck of dust off the word MANAGER which was printed in fancy script over one of the pockets of his coat. “Good evening, Baudelaires,” the man said. “Forgive me for not revealing myself earlier, but I had to be sure that you were who I thought you were. It must have been very confusing to wander around this hotel without a catalog to help you.”
“So there is a catalog?” Klaus asked.
“Of course there's a catalog,” the man said. “You don't think I'd organize this entire building according to the Dewey Decimal System and then neglect to add a catalog, do you?”
“But where is the catalog?” Violet asked.
The man smiled. “Come outside,” he said, “and I'll show you.”
“Trap,” Sunny murmured to her siblings, who nodded in agreement.
“We're not following you,” Violet said, “until we know that you're someone we can trust.”
The man smiled. “I don't blame you for being suspicious,” he said. “When I used to meet your father, Baudelaires, we would recite the work of an American humorist poet of the nineteenth century, so we could recognize one another in our disguises.” He stopped in the middle of the lobby, and with a gesture from one of his odd, skinny arms, he began to recite a poem:
“So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!”
The words of the American humorist poets of the nineteenth century are often confusing, as they are liable to use such terms as “oft,” which is a nineteenth-century abbreviation for “often”; “disputants,” which refers to people who are arguing; “ween,” which means “think”; and “rail on,” which means to bicker for hours on end, the way you might do with a family member who is particularly bossy. Such poets might use the word “prate,” which means “chatter,” and they might spend an entire stanza discussing “theologic wars,” a term which refers to arguing over what different people believe, the way you might also do with a family member who is particularly bossy. Even the Baudelaires, who'd had the works of American humorist poets of the nineteenth century recited to them many times over their childhood, had trouble understanding everything in the stanza, which simply made the point that all of the blind men in the poem were arguing pointlessly. But Violet, Klaus, and Sunny did not need to know exactly what the stanza meant. They only needed to know who wrote it.
“Very good,” the man said, and he walked across the shiny, silent floor of the lobby, pulling the rope down from the ceiling and tucking it into his belt.
“And who are you?” Violet called.
“Can't you guess?” the man asked, pausing at the large, curved entrance. The Baudelaires hurried to catch up with him as he turned to exit the hotel.
“Frank?” Klaus said.
“No,” the man said, and began to walk down the stairs. The Baudelaires took a step outside, where the croaking of the frogs in the pond was considerably louder, although the children could not see the pond through the cloud of steam coming from the funnel. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny looked at one another cautiously, and then began to follow.
“Ernest?” Sunny asked.
The man smiled, and kept walking down the stairs, disappearing into the steam. “No,” he said, and the Baudelaire orphans stepped out of the hotel and disappeared along with him.
C H A P T E R
Eight
The word “denouement” is not only the name of a hotel or the family who manages it, particularly nowadays, when the hotel and all its secrets have almost been forgotten, and the surviving members of the family have changed their names and are working in smaller, less glamorous inns. “Denouement” comes from the French, who use the word to describe the act of untying a knot, and it refers to the unraveling of a confusing or mysterious story, such as the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, or anyone else you know whose life is filled with unanswered questions. The denouement is the moment when all of the knots of a story are untied, and all the threads are unraveled, and everything is laid out clearly for the world to see. But the denouement should not be confused with the end of a story. The denouement of “Snow White,” for instance, occurs at the moment when Ms. White wakes up from her enchanted sleep, and decides to leave the dwarves behind and marry the handsome prince, and the mysterious old woman who gave her an apple has been exposed as the treacherous queen, but the end of “Snow White” occurs many years later, when a horseback riding accident plunges Ms. White into a fever from which she never recovers. The denouement of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” occurs at the moment when the bears return home to find Goldilocks napping on their private property, and either chase her away from the premises, or eat her, depending on which version you have in your library, but the end of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” occurs when a troop of young scouts neglect to extinguish their campfire and even the efforts of a volunteer fire department cannot save most of the wildlife from certain death. There are some stories in which the denouement and the end occur simultaneously, such as La Forza del Destino, in which the characters recognize and destroy one another over the course of a single song, but usually the denouement of a story is not the last event in the heroes' lives, or the last trouble that befalls them. It is often the second-to-last event, or the penultimate peril. As the Baudelaire orphans followed the mysterious man out of the hotel and through the cloud of steam to the edge of the reflective pond, the denouement of their story was fast approaching, but the end of their story still waited for them, like a secret still covered in fog, or a distant island in the midst of a troubled seasea, whose waves raged against the shores of a city and the walls of a perplexing hotel.
“You must have thousands of questions, Baudelaires,” said the man. “And just think- right here is where they can be answered.”
“Who are you?” Violet asked.
“I'm Dewey Denouement,” Dewey Denouement replied. “The third triplet. Haven't you heard of me?”
“No,” Klaus said. “We thought there were only Frank and Ernest.”
“Frank and Ernest get all the attention,” Dewey said. “They get to walk around the hotel managing everything, while I just hide in the shadows and wind the clock.” He gave the Baudelaires an enormous sigh, and scowled into the depths of the pond. “That's what I don't like about V.F.D.,” he said. “All the smoke and mirrors.”
“Smoke?” Sunny asked.
“'Smoke and mirrors,'” Klaus explained, “means 'trickery used to cover up the truth.' But what does that have to do with V.F.D.?”
“Before the schism,” Dewey said, “V.F.D. was like a public library. Anyone could join us and have access to all of the information we'd acquired. Volunteers all over the globe were reading each other's research, learning of each other's observations, and borrowing each other's books. For a while it seemed as if we might keep the whole world safe, secure, and smart.”
“It must have been a wonderful time,” Klaus said.
“I scarcely remember it,” Dewey said. “I was four years old when the schism began. I was scarcely tall enough to reach my favorite shelf in the family library-the books labeled 020. But one night, just as our parents were hanging balloons for our fifth birthday party, my brothers and I were taken.”
“Taken where?” Violet asked.
“Taken by whom?” Sunny asked.
“I admire your curiosity,” Dewey said. “The woman who took me said that one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways. And she took me to a place high in the mountains, where she said such things would be encouraged.”
Klaus opened his commonplace book and began to take furious notes. “The headquarters,” Klaus said, “in the Valley of Four Drafts.”
“Your parents must have missed you,” Violet said.
“They perished that very night,” Dewey said, “in a terrible fire. I don't have to tell you how badly I felt when I learned the news.”
The Baudelaires sighed, and looked out at the pond. Here and there on its calm surface they could see the reflections of a few lights in the windows, but most of the hotel was dark, so most of the pond was dark, too. The triplet, of course, did not have to tell the Baudelaires how it felt to lose one's parents so suddenly, or at such a young age. “It was not always this way, Baudelaires,” Dewey said. “Once there were safe places scattered across the globe, and so orphans like yourselves did not have to wander from place to place, trying to find noble people who could be of assistance. With each generation, the schism gets worse. If justice does not prevail, soon there will be no safe places left, and nobody left to remember how the world ought to be.”
“I don't understand,” Violet said. “Why weren't we taken, like you?”
“You were,” Dewey said. “You were taken into the custody of Count Olaf. And he tried to keep you in his custody, no matter how many noble people intervened.”
“But why didn't anyone tell us what was going on?” Klaus asked. “Why did we have to figure things out all by ourselves?”
“I'm afraid that's the wicked way of the world,” Dewey said, with a shake of his head. “Everything's covered in smoke and mirrors, Baudelaires. Since the schism, all the research, all the observations, even all of the books have been scattered all over the globe. It's like the elephant in the poem your father loved. Everyone has their hands on a tiny piece of the truth, but nobody can see the whole thing. Very soon, however, all that will change.”
“Thursday,” Sunny said.
“Exactly,” Dewey said, smiling down at the youngest Baudelaire. “At long last, all of the noble people will be gathered together, along with all the research they've done, all the observations they've made, all the evidence they've collected, and all the books they've read. Just as a library catalog can tell you where a certain book is located, this catalog can tell you the location and behavior of every volunteer and every villain.” He gestured to the hotel. “For years,” he said, “while noble people wandered the world observing treachery, my comrade and I have been right here gathering all the information together. We've copied every note from every commonplace book from every volunteer and compiled it all into a catalog. Occasionally, when volunteers have been lost or safe places destroyed, we've had to go ourselves to collect the information that has been left behind. We've retrieved Josephine Anwhistle's files from Lake Lachrymose and carefully copied down their contents. We've pasted together the burnt scraps of Madame Lulu's archival library and taken notes on what we've found. We've searched the childhood home of the man with a beard but no hair, and interviewed the math teacher of the woman with hair but no beard. We've memorized important articles within the stacks of newspaper in Paltryville, and we've thrown important items out of the windows of our destroyed headquarters, so they might wind up somewhere safe at sea. We've taken every crime, every theft, every wicked deed, and every incident of rudeness since the schism began, and cataloged them into an entire library of misfortune. Eventually, every crucial secret ends up in my catalog. It's been my life's work. It has not been an easy life, but it has been an informative one.”
“You're more than a volunteer,” Violet said. “You're a librarian.”
“I'm more of a sub-sub-librarian,” Dewey said modestly. “That's what your parents used to call me, because my library work has been largely undercover and underground. Every villain in the world would want to destroy all this evidence, so it's been necessary to hide my life's work away.”
“But where could you hide something that enormous?” Klaus said. “It would be like hiding an elephant. A catalog that immense would have to be as big as the hotel itself.”
“It is,” Dewey said, with a sly expression on his face. “In fact, it's exactly as big as the hotel.”
Violet and Klaus turned their gaze from Dewey to look at each other in confusion, but Sunny was gazing neither at the sub-sub-librarian nor at her siblings, but down at the dark surface of the pond. “!ahA” she said, pointing a small, gloved finger at the calm, still water.
“Exactly,” Dewey said. “The truth has been right under everyone's noses, if anyone cared to look past the surface. Volunteers and villains alike know that the last safe place is the Hotel Denouement, but no one has ever questioned why the sign is written backward. They're staying in the TNEMEUONED LETOH , while the real last safe place-the catalog-is hidden safely at the bottom of the pond, in underwater rooms organized in a mirror image of the hotel itself. Our enemies could burn the entire building to the ground, but the most important secrets would be safe.”
“But if the location of the catalog is such an important secret,” Violet said, “why are you telling us?”
“Because you should know,” Dewey said. “You've wandered the world, observing more villainy and gathering more evidence than most people do in a lifetime. I'm sure the observations and evidence you've gathered in your commonplace book will be valuable contributions to the catalog. Who better than you to keep the world's most important secrets?” He looked out at the pond, and then at each orphan in turn. “After Thursday,” he continued, “you won't have to be at sea anymore, Baudelaires.” The children knew that by the expression “at sea” he meant “lost and confused,” and hearing those words brought tears to their eyes. “I hope you decide to make this your permanent home. I need someone with an inventive imagination who can improve on the aquatic design of the catalog. I need someone with the sort of research skills that can expand the catalog until it is the finest in the world. And, of course, we'll need to eat, and I've heard wonderful things about Sunny's cooking.”
“Efcharisto,” Sunny said modestly.
“Hal's meals are atrocious, I'm afraid,” Dewey said with a rueful smile. “I don't know why he insisted on opening his restaurant in Room 954, when so many other suitable rooms were available. Bad food of any style is unpleasant, but bad Indian food is possibly the worst.”
“Hal is a volunteer?” Klaus asked, remembering what Sunny had observed during her errands as a concierge.
“In a manner of speaking,” Dewey said, using an expression which here means “sort of.” “After the fire that destroyed Heimlich Hospital , my comrade arrived on the scene to catalog any information that might have survived. She found Hal in a very distraught condition. His Library of Records was in shambles, and he had nowhere to live. She offered him a position at the Hotel Denouement, where he might aid us in our research and learn to cook. Unfortunately he's only been good at one of those things.”
“And what about Charles?” Violet asked, remembering what Klaus had observed during his errands.
“Charles has been searching for you since you left the lumbermill,” Dewey said. “He cares for you, Baudelaires, despite the selfish and dreadful behavior of his partner. You've seen your share of wicked people, Baudelaires, but you've seen your share of people as noble as you are.”
“I'm not sure we are noble,” Klaus said quietly, flipping the pages of his commonplace book. “We caused those accidents at the lumbermill. We're responsible for the destruction of the hospital. We helped start the fire that destroyed Madame Lulu's archival library. We-”
“Enough,” Dewey interrupted gently, putting a hand on Klaus's shoulder. “You're noble enough, Baudelaires. That's all we can ask for in this world.”
The middle Baudelaire hung his head, so he was leaning against the sub-sub-librarian, and his sisters huddled against him, and all four volunteers stood for a moment silently in the dark. Tears fell from the eyes of the orphans- all four of them-and, as with many tears shed at night, they could not have said exactly why they were crying, although I know why I am crying as I type this, and it is not because of the onions that someone is slicing in the next room, or because of the wretched curry he is planning on making with them. I am crying because Dewey Denouement was wrong. He was not wrong when he said the Baudelaires were noble enough, although I suppose many people might argue about such a thing, if they were sitting around a room together without a deck of cards or something good to read. Dewey was wrong when he said that being noble enough is all we can ask for in this world, because we can ask for much more than that. We can ask for a second helping of pound cake, even though someone has made it quite clear that we will not get any. We can ask for a new watercolor set, even though it will be pointed out that we never used the old one, and that all of the paints dried into a crumbly mess. We can ask for Japanese fighting fish, to keep us company in our bedroom, and we can ask for a special camera that will allow us to take photographs even in the dark, for obvious reasons, and we can ask for an extra sugar cube in our coffees in the morning and an extra pillow in our beds at night. We can ask for justice, and we can ask for a handkerchief, and we can ask for cupcakes, and we can ask for all the soldiers in the world to lay down their weapons and join us in a rousing chorus of “Cry Me a River,” if that happens to be our favorite song. But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, “You are noble enough,” and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt. Most of us, of course, have parents and friends who tell us such things, after we have lost a badminton tournament or failed to capture a notorious counterfeiter who we discovered aboard a certain motorboat. But the Baudelaire orphans, of course, had no living parents, and their closest friends were high in the sky, in a self-sustaining hot air mobile home, battling eagles and a terrible henchman who had hooks instead of hands, so the acquaintance of Dewey Denouement, and the comforting words he had uttered, were a blessing. The Baudelaires stood with the sub-sub-librarian, grateful for this blessing, and at the sound of an approaching automobile, they looked to see two more blessings arriving via taxi, and were grateful all over again.
“Baudelaires!” called a familiar voice.
“Baudelaires!” called another one.
The siblings peered through the dark at the two figures emerging from the taxi, scarcely able to believe their eyes. These people were wearing strange eyeglasses made of two large cones that were attached to their heads with a mass of tangled rope, which was coiled up on top of their heads. Such glasses might have concealed the identity of the people who were wearing them, but the Baudelaires had no trouble recognizing the people who were hurrying toward them, even though they had not seen either person for a very long time, and had thought they would never see them again.
“Justice Strauss!” Violet cried.
“Jerome Squalor!” Klaus cried.
“J. S.!” Sunny cried.
“I'm so happy to find you,” said the judge, taking off her Vision Furthering Device so she could dab at her eyes and embrace the children one by one. “I was afraid I'd never see you again. I'll never forgive myself for letting that idiotic banker take you away from me.”
“And I'll never forgive myself,” said Jerome, who had the misfortune of being married to Esmé Squalor, “for walking away from you children. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good guardian.”
“And I'm afraid I wasn't a guardian at all,” Justice Strauss said. “As soon as you were taken away in that automobile, I knew I had done the wrong thing, and when I heard the dreadful news about Dr. Montgomery I began searching for you. Eventually I found other people who were also trying to battle the wicked villains of this world, but I always hoped I would find you myself, if only to say how sorry I was.”
“I'm sorry, too,” Jerome said. “As soon as I heard about all the troubles that befell you in the Village of Fowl Devotees, I began my own Baudelaire search. Volunteers were leaving me messages everywhere-at least, I thought the messages were addressed to me.”
“And I thought they were addressed to me ,” Justice Strauss said. “There are certainly plenty of people with the initials J. S.”
“I began to feel like an impostor,” Jerome said.
“You're not impostors,” Dewey said. “You're volunteers.” He turned to the Baudelaires. “Both these people have helped us immeasurably,” he said, using a word which here means “a whole lot.” “Justice Strauss has reported the details of your case to the other judges in the High Court. And Jerome Squalor has done some critical research on injustice.”
“I was inspired by my wife,” Jerome confessed, removing his Vision Furthering Device. “Wherever I looked for you, Baudelaires, I found selfish plots to steal your fortune. I read books on injustice in all the libraries you left behind and eventually wrote a book myself. Odious Lusting After Finance chronicles the history of greedy villains, treacherous girlfriends, bungling bankers, and all the other people responsible for injustice.”
“No matter what we do, however,” Justice Strauss said, “we can't erase the wrongs we did you, Baudelaires.”
“She's right,” Jerome Squalor said. “We should have been as noble as you are.”
“You're noble enough,” Violet said, and her siblings nodded in agreement, as the judge and the injustice expert embraced them again. When someone has disappointed you, as Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor disappointed the Baudelaires, it is often difficult to decide whether to continue their acquaintance, even if the disappointers have done noble things in the meantime. There are some who say that you should forgive everyone, even the people who have disappointed you immeasurably. There are others who say you should not forgive anyone, and should stomp off in a huff no matter how many times they apologize. Of these two philosophies, the second one is of course much more fun, but it can also grow exhausting to stomp off in a huff every time someone has disappointed you, as everyone disappoints everyone eventually, and one can't stomp off in a huff every minute of the day. When the Baudelaires thought about the harm that each J. S. had done to them, it was as if they had gotten a bruise quite some time ago, one that had mostly faded but that still hurt when they touched it, and when they touched this bruise it made them want to stomp off in a huff. But on that evening-or, more properly, very early Wednesday morning-the siblings did not want to stomp off into the hotel, where so many wicked people were gathered, or into the pond, which was likely to be very cold and clammy at this time of night. They wanted to forgive these two adults, and to embrace them, despite their disappointment.
“I don't mean to break up all this embracing,” Dewey said, “but we have work to do, volunteers. As one of the first volunteers said a very long time ago, 'Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.'”
“Speaking of frogs,” Justice Strauss said, “I'm afraid to report that we couldn't see a thing from the other side of the pond. These Vision Furthering Devices work well in the daytime, but looking through special sunglasses after sunset makes everything look as dark as a crow flying through a pitch black night-which is precisely what we're looking for.”
“Justice Strauss is correct,” Jerome said sadly. “We couldn't verify the arrival of the crows, or whether their journey was interrupted.”
“We couldn't see if even a single crow was trapped,” the judge said, “or if the sugar bowl fell into the funnel.”
“Funnel?” Dewey repeated.
“Yes,” Justice Strauss said. “You told us that if our enemies shot down the crows, they would have fallen onto the birdpaper.”
“And if the crows fell onto the birdpaper,” Jerome continued, “then the sugar bowl would drop into the laundry room, right?”
Dewey looked slyly at the steaming funnel, and then at the surface of the pond. “So it would appear,” he said. “Our enemies capturing the sugar bowl would be as troubling as their capture of the Medusoid Mycelium.”
“So you already know about the plan to shoot down the crows, and capture the sugar bowl?” Violet said incredulously.
“Yes,” Dewey said. “Justice Strauss learned that the harpoon gun had been taken up to the rooftop sunbathing salon. Jerome noticed that birdpaper was dangling out of the window of the sauna in Room 613. And I gave Sunny the lock myself, so she could lock up the laundry in Room 025.”
“You know about all the villainous people who are lurking in the hotel?” Klaus said, equally incredulously.
“Yes,” Justice Strauss said. “We observed rings on all the wooden furniture, from people refusing to use coasters. Obviously there are many villains staying in the hotel.”
“Mycelium?” Sunny asked, with perhaps just a touch more incredulousness than her siblings.
“Yes,” Jerome said. “We've learned that Olaf has managed to acquire a few spores locked tight in a diving helmet.”
The Baudelaires looked at the commonplace book in Klaus's hands, and then back at the sub-sub-librarian. “I guess our observations and evidence aren't such valuable contributions after all,” Violet said. “All the mysteries we encountered in the hotel had already been solved.”
“It doesn't matter, Baudelaires,” Jerome said. “Olaf won't dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium unless he gets his hands on the sugar bowl, and he'll never find it.”
“I'm the only one who knows which words will unlock the Vernacularly Fastened Door,” Dewey said, ushering the children back toward the entrance of the hotel, “and there's not a villainous person on Earth who has done enough reading to guess them before Thursday. By then, all of the volunteers will present the research they've done on Count Olaf and his associates to the prosecution, and all their treachery will finally end.”
“Jerome Squalor will be an important witness,” Justice Strauss said. “His comprehensive history of injustice will help the High Court reach a verdict.”
“Prosecution?” Violet asked.
“Witness?” Klaus asked.
“Verdict?” Sunny said.
The three adults smiled at one another, and then at the Baudelaires. “That's what we've been trying to tell you,” Dewey said gently. “V.F.D. has researched an entire catalog of Olaf's treachery. On Thursday, Justice Strauss and the other judges of the High Court will hear from each and every one of our volunteers. Count Olaf, Esmé Squalor, and all of the other villainous people gathered here will finally be brought to justice.”
“You'll never have to hide from Olaf again,” Jerome said, “or worry that anyone will steal your fortune.”
“We just have to wait for tomorrow, Baudelaires,” Justice Strauss said, “and your troubles will finally be over.”
“It's like my comrade always says,” Dewey said. “Right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
Wrong! The clanging of the clock announced that it was one in the morning, and without another word, Dewey took Violet's hand, and Justice Strauss took Klaus's, and Jerome Squalor leaned down and took Sunny's hand, and the three adults led the three orphans up the stairs toward the hotel's entrance, walking past the taxi, which still sat there, engine purring, with the figure of the driver just a shadow in the window. The three adults smiled at the children, and the children smiled back, but of course the Baudelaires were not born yesterday, an expression which means “young or innocent enough to believe things certain people say about the world.” If the Baudelaires had been born yesterday, perhaps they would be innocent enough to believe that all of their troubles were truly about to end, and that Count Olaf and all of his treacherous associates would be judged by the High Court, and condemned to the proper punishment for all their ignoble deeds, and that the children would spend the rest of their days working with Dewey Denouement on his enormous underwater catalog, if they only waited for tomorrow. But the three siblings were not born yesterday. Violet was born more than fifteen years before this particular Wednesday, and Klaus was born approximately two years after that, and even Sunny, who had just passed out of babyhood, was not born yesterday. Neither were you, unless of course I am wrong, in which case welcome to the world, little baby, and congratulations on learning to read so early in life. But if you were not born yesterday, and you have read anything about the Baudelaire children's lives, then you cannot be surprised that this happy moment was almost immediately cut short by the appearance of a most unwelcome person at the moment the children were led through the fog of steam coming from the laundry room funnel and through the entrance of the Hotel Denouement as the one loud Wrong/ faded into nothing. This person was standing in the center of the lobby, his tall lean body bent into a theatrical pose as if he were waiting for a crowd to applaud, and you will not be surprised to know what was tattooed on his ankle, which the children could see poking out of a hole in his sock even in the dim light of the room. You were not born yesterday, probably, so you will not be surprised to find that this notorious villain had reappeared in the Baudelaires' lives for the penultimate time, and the Baudelaires were also not born yesterday, and so they also were not surprised. They were not born yesterday, but when Count Olaf turned to face them, and gazed upon them with his shiny, shiny eyes, the Baudelaire orphans wished they had not been born at all.
C H A P T E R
Nine
'Ha!“ Count Olaf shrieked, pointing at the Baudelaire orphans with a bony finger, and the children were thankful for small mercies. A small mercy is simply a tiny thing that has gone right in a world gone wrong, like a sprig of delicious parsley next to a spoiled tuna sandwich, or a lovely dandelion in a garden that is being devoured by vicious goats. A small mercy, like a small flyswatter, is unlikely to be of any real help, but nevertheless the three siblings, even in their horror and disgust at seeing Olaf again, were thankful for the small mercy that the villain had apparently lost interest in his new laugh. The last time the Baudelaires had seen the villain, he'd been aboard a strange submarine shaped like an octopus, and he'd developed a laugh that was equally strange, full of snorts and squeaks and words that happened to begin with the letter H. But as the villain strode toward the children and the adults who were clutching their hands, it was clear he had since adopted a style of laughter that was succinct, a word which here means ”only the word 'ha.'"
“Ha!” he cried. “I knew I'd find you orphans again! Ha! And now you're in my clutches! Ha!”
“We're not in your clutches,” Violet said. “We just happen to be standing in the same room.”
“That's what you think, orphan,” Olaf sneered. “I'm afraid the man who's holding your hand is one of my associates. Hand her over, Ernest. Ha!”
“Ha yourself, Olaf,” said Dewey Denouement. His voice was firm and confident, but Violet felt his hand trembling in hers. “I'm not Ernest, and I'm not handing her over!”
“Well, then hand her over, Frank!” Olaf said. “You might consider doing your hair differently so I can tell you apart.”
“I'm not Frank, either,” Dewey said.
“You can't fool me!” Count Olaf growled. “I wasn't born yesterday, you know! You're one of those idiotic twins! I should know! Thanks to me, you two are the only survivors of the entire family!”
“Triplets run in my family,” Dewey said, “not twins. I'm Dewey Denouement.”
At this, Count Olaf's one eyebrow raised in astonishment. “Dewey Denouement,” he murmured. “So you're a real person! I always thought you were a legendary figure, like unicorns or Giuseppe Verdi.”
“Giuseppe Verdi is not a legendary figure,” Klaus said indignantly. “He's an operatic composer!”
“Silence, bookworm!” Olaf ordered. “Children should not speak while adults are arguing! Hand over the orphans, adults!”
“Nobody's handing over the Baudelaires!” Justice Strauss said, clutching Klaus's hand. “You have no legal right to them or their fortune!”
“You can't just grab children as if they were pieces of fruit in a bowl!” Jerome Squalor cried. “It's injustice, and we won't have it!”
“You'd better watch yourselves,” Count Olaf said, narrowing his shiny eyes. “I have associates lurking everywhere in this hotel.”
“So do we,” Dewey said. “Many volunteers have arrived early, and within hours the streets will be flooded with taxis carrying noble people here to this hotel.”
“How can you be sure they're noble people?”Count Olaf asked. “A taxi will pick up anyone who signals for one.”
“These people are associates of ours,” Dewey said fiercely. “They won't fail us.”
“Ha!” Count Olaf said. “You can't rely on associates. More comrades have failed me than I can count. Why, Hooky and Fiona double-crossed me just yesterday, and let you brats escape! Then they double-crossed me again and stole my submarine!”
“We can rely on our friends,” Violet said quietly, “more than you can rely on yours.”
“Is that so?” Count Olaf asked, and leaned toward the children with a ravenous smile. “Have you learned nothing after all your adventures?” he asked. “Every noble person has failed you, Baudelaires. Why, look at the idiots standing next to you! A judge who let me marry you, a man who gave up on you altogether, and a sub-sub-librarian who spends his life sneaking around taking notes. They're hardly a noble bunch.”
“Charles is here, from Lucky Smells Lumbermill,” Klaus said. “He cares about us.”
“Sir is here,” Olaf retorted. “He doesn't. Ha!”
“Hal,” Sunny said.
“Vice Principal Nero and Mr. Remora,” Olaf replied, counting each nasty person on his filthy fingers. “And that pesky little reporter from The Daily Punctilio , who's here to write silly articles praising my cocktail party. And ridiculous Mr. Poe, who arrived just hours ago to investigate a bank robbery. Ha!”
“Those people don't count,” Klaus said. “They're not associates of yours.”
“They might as well be,” Count Olaf replied. “They've been an enormous help. And every second, more associates of mine get closer and closer.”
“So do our friends,” Violet said. “They're flying across the sea as we speak, and by tomorrow, their self-sustaining hot air mobile home will land on the roof.”
“Only if they've managed to survive my eagles,” Count Olaf said with a growl.
“They will,” Klaus said. “Just like we've survived you.”
“And how did you survive me?” Olaf asked. “The Daily Punctilio is full of your crimes. You lied to people. You stole. You abandoned people in danger. You set fires. Time after time you've relied on treachery to survive, just like everyone else. There are no truly noble people in this world.”
“Our parents,” Sunny said fiercely.
Count Olaf looked surprised that Sunny had spoken, and then gave all three Baudelaires a smile that made them shudder. “I guess the sub-sub-librarian hasn't told you the story about your parents,” he said, “and a box of poison darts. Why don't you ask him, orphans? Why don't you ask this legendary librarian about that fateful evening at the opera?”
The Baudelaires turned to look at Dewey, who had begun to blush. But before they could ask him anything, they were interrupted by a voice coming from a pair of sliding doors that had quietly opened.
“Don't ask him that,” Esmé Squalor said. “I have a much more important question.”
With a mocking laugh, the treacherous girlfriend emerged from the elevator, her silver sandals clumping on the floor and her lettuce leaves rustling against her skin. Behind her was Carmelita Spats, who was still wearing her ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate outfit and carrying the harpoon gun Violet had delivered, and behind her three more people emerged from the elevator. First came the attendant from the rooftop sunbathing salon, still wearing green sunglasses and a long, baggy robe. Following the attendant was the mysterious chemist from outside the sauna, dressed in a long, white coat and a surgical mask, and last out of the elevator was the washerwoman from the laundry room, with long, blond hair and rumpled clothing. The Baudelaires recognized these people from their observations as flaneurs, but then the attendant removed his robe to reveal his back, which had a small hump on the shoulder, and the chemist removed her surgical mask, not with one of her hands but with one of her feet, and the washerwoman removed a long, blond wig with both hands at the exact same time, and the three siblings recognized the three henchfolk all over again.
“Hugo!” cried Violet.
“Colette!” cried Klaus.
“Kevin!” cried Sunny.
“Esmé!” cried Jerome.
“Why isn't anybody calling out my name?” demanded Carmelita, stomping one of her bright blue boots. She pranced toward Violet, who observed that two of the four long, sharp hooks were missing from the weapon. This sort of observation may be important for a flaneur, but it is dreadful for any reader of this book, who probably does not want to know where the remaining harpoons will end up. “I'm a ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate,” she crowed to the oldest Baudelaire, “and you're nothing but a cakesniffer. Call my name or I'll shoot you with this harpoon gun!”
“Carmelita!” Esmé said, her silver mouth twisting into an expression of shock. “Don't point that gun at Violet!”
“Esmé's right,” Count Olaf said. “Don't waste the harpoons. We may need them.”
“Yes!” Esmé cried. “There's always important work to do before a cocktail party, particularly if you want it to be the innest in the world! We need to put slipcovers on the couches, and hide our associates beneath them! We need to put vases of flowers on the piano and electric eels in the fountain! We need to hang streamers and volunteers from the ceiling! We need to play music, so people can dance, and block the exits, so they can't leave! And most of all, we have to cook in food and prepare in cocktails! Food and drink are the most important aspect of every social occasion, and our in recipes-”
“The most important aspect of every social occasion isn't food and drink!” Dewey interrupted indignantly. “It's conversation!”
“You're the one who should flee!” Justice Strauss said. “Your cocktail party will be canceled, due to the host and hostess being brought to justice by the High Court!”
“You're as foolish as you were when we were neighbors,” Count Olaf said. “The High Court can't stop us. V.F.D. can't stop us. Hidden somewhere in this hotel is one of the most deadly fungi in the entire world. When Thursday comes, the fungus will come out of hiding and destroy everyone it touches! At last I'll be free to steal the Baudelaire fortune and perform any other act of treachery that springs to mind!”
“You won't dare unleash the Medusoid Mycelium,” Dewey said. “Not while I have the sugar bowl.”
“Funny you should mention the sugar bowl,” Esmé Squalor said, although the Baudelaires could see she didn't think it was funny at all. “That's just what we want to ask you about.”
“The sugar bowl?” Count Olaf asked, his eyes shining bright. “Where is it?”
“The freaks will tell you,” Esmé said.
“It's true, boss,” said Hugo. “I may be a mere hunchback, but I saw Carmelita shoot down the crows using the harpoon gun Violet brought her.”
Justice Strauss turned to Violet in astonishment. “You gave Carmelita the harpoon gun?” she gasped.
“Well, yes,” Violet said. “I had to perform concierge errands as part of my disguise.”
“The harpoon gun was supposed to be kept away from villains,” the judge said, “not given to them. Why didn't Frank stop you?”
Violet thought back to her unfathomable conversation with Frank. “I think he tried,” she said quietly, “but I had to take the harpoon gun up to the roof. What else could I do?”
“I hit two crows!” bragged Carmelita Spats. “That means Countie has to teach me how to spit like a real ballplaying cowboy superhero soldier pirate!”
“Don't worry, darling,” Esmé said. “He'll teach you. Won't you, Olaf?”
Count Olaf sighed, as if he had better things to do than teach a little girl how to propel saliva out of her mouth. “Yes, Carmelita,” he said, “I'll teach you how to spit.”
Colette took center stage, a phrase which here means “stepped forward, and twisted her body into an unusual shape.” “Even a contortionist like me,” she said, her mouth moving beneath her elbow, “could see what happened after Carmelita shot the crows. They fell right onto the birdpaper that Klaus dangled out the window.”
“You dangled the birdpaper out the window?” Jerome asked the middle Baudelaire.
“Ernest told me to,” Klaus said, finally realizing which manager had spoken to him in the sauna. “I had to obey him as part of my disguise.”
“You can't just do what everyone tells you to do,” Jerome said.
“What else could I do?” Klaus said.
“When the crows hit the birdpaper,” Kevin said, gesturing with one hand and then the other, “they dropped the sugar bowl. I didn't see where it went with either my right eye or my left one, which I'm sad to say are equally strong. But I did see Sunny turn the door of the laundry room into a Vernacularly Fastened Door.”
“Aha!” Count Olaf cried. “The sugar bowl must have fallen down the funnel!”
“I still don't see why I had to disguise myself as a washerwoman,” Kevin said timidly. “I could have just been a washer person, and not worn this humiliating wig.”
“Or you could have been a noble person,” Violet could not help adding, “instead of spying on a brave volunteer.”
“What else could I do?” Kevin asked, shrugging both shoulders equally high.
“You could be a volunteer yourself,” Klaus said, looking at all of his former carnival coworkers. “All of you could stand with us now, instead of helping Count Olaf with his schemes.”
“I could never be a noble person,” Hugo said sadly. “I have a hump on my back.”
“And I'm a contortionist,” Colette said. “Someone who can bend their body into unusual shapes could never be a volunteer.”
“V.F.D. would never accept an ambidextrous person,” Kevin said. “It's my destiny to be a treacherous person.”
“Galimatias!” Sunny cried.
“Nonsense!” Dewey said, who understood at once what Sunny had said. “I'm ambidextrous myself, and I've managed to do something worthwhile with my life. Being treacherous isn't your destiny! It's your choice!”
“I'm glad you feel that way,” Esmé Squalor said. “You have a choice this very moment, Frank. Tell me where the sugar bowl is, or else!”
“That's not a choice,” Dewey said, “and I'm not Frank.”
Esmé frowned. “Then you have a choice this very moment, Ernest. Tell me where the sugar bowl is, or-”
“Dewey,” Sunny said.
Esmé blinked at the youngest Baudelaire, who noticed that the villainous woman's eyelashes had also been painted silver. “What?” she asked.
“It's true,” Olaf said. “He's the real sub-sub. It turns out he's not legendary, like Verdi.”
“Is that so?” Esmé Squalor said. “So someone has really been cataloging everything that has happened between us?”
“It's been my life's work,” Dewey said. “Eventually, every crucial secret ends up in my catalog.”
“Then you know all about the sugar bowl,” Esmé said, “and what's inside. You know how important that thing was, and how many lives were lost in the quest to find it. You know how difficult it was to find a container that could hold it safely, securely, and attractively. You know what it means to the Baudelaires and what it means to the Snickets.” She took one sandaled step closer to Dewey, and stretched out one silver fingernail-the one shaped like an S-until it was almost poking him in the eye. “And you know,” she said in a terrible voice, “that it is mine. ”
“Not anymore,” Dewey said.
“Beatrice stole it from me! ” Esmé cried.
“There are worse things,” Dewey said, “than theft.”
At this, the girlfriend gave the sub-sublibrarian a chuckle that made the Baudelaires' blood run cold. “There certainly are,” she said, and strode toward Carmelita Spats. With one spiky fingernail-the one shaped like an M- she moved the harpoon gun so it was pointing at the triplet. “Tell me how to open that door,” she said, “or this little girl will harpoon you.”